In this comprehensive overview of annual giving programs, you’ll gain an introduction to the basic terminology and concepts of annual giving as well as the various solicitation channels and donor types. Learn how to write a direct mail appeal, craft an impactful email appeal, and develop a script for phone solicitation. You’ll learn how to build a leadership annual giving portfolio and maximize the impact of memberships and events in annual campaigns. You’ll complete the course with the knowledge and skills to build and implement a multi-channel solicitation strategy that achieves the goals of an annual campaign.
Building a Portfolio (Part 2)
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Annual Campaigns: Building a Case for Support
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University of California, Davis
5 classificações
Curso 2 de 4 em Specialization Fundraising and Development
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Leadership Annual Giving
In this module, you will be able to develop a portfolio of annual giving donors. You'll be able to discuss ideas and best practices for securing a face-to-face donor visit. You will be able to demonstrate how to successfully qualify and solicit a high-value annual donor. You will be able to apply strategies to build relationships with donors to help them achieve their philanthropic goals.
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Michelle PoesySenior Director
Annual and Special Gifts
What I'm illustrating here is the difference between the roles of
the leadership annual giving officer and the major gift officer.
What is transactional in nature?
Qualification, cultivation, and the ask occur during the first visit.
The gift ranges can be from a $1,000 to $25,000 and hopefully they occur annually.
From the start, the prospect is probably unfamiliar with
your organization and you will have to quickly educate and inspire them into action.
The other is more relationship based.
Major gift solicitations occur after multiple visits and
the ask may not occur for months, possibly years.
The gifts typically start in the $25,000
range and they can go much higher into the multi-millions,
that is then set up over a specific amount of time
into a specific thing driven by donor intent.
The prospect is usually quite involved with the institution,
they've been a regular annual donor for some time,
and they are expertly informed on the area of their passion at the organization.
First big tip, do not be afraid to remove prospects from your pipeline.
We're all going to connect with people that we
meet and find personal connections that are meaningful to us.
I mean remember, people give to people,
so we're looking to build those connections.
But some of them are simply not philanthropic.
And as you're in the job of raising money,
you need to make sure that you're making
the right call there so that you're not wasting your time.
Some may be better suited to be volunteers,
return them to annual giving or just connect them to the right next step,
and move on in your process.
You've got to focus your efforts on those with
the greatest potential and keep doing that.
It's all about the ask.
I know this is repetitive but I can't bring
enough attention to this one self-evident truth.
You must ask the person sitting across from you to make a gift.
Hesitation is just simply slowing down the process.
If they agreed to see you and you were transparent and
authentic in your purpose when setting up the meeting,
then they are expecting this to happen.
Don't disappoint, confuse, or aggravate them by not doing your job.
Their time is valuable and frankly, so is yours.
You're not showing respect for them if you don't finish what you started.
So, be brave and make the ask.
The first big question, who should you visit?
Prospects that would include long term consistent donors with
some evidence of greater capacity who have never been visited by a gift officer,
current and past major gift donors who are not current annual fund donors,
first time donors who come in giving it a higher level,
major gift prospects who are not actually
well-known to the organization and need to be qualified,
prospects who are highly rated either by
your research organization or by a peer screening or volunteer,
donors who work for matching gift companies are fabulous prospects,
internal stakeholders and organizational leadership and
other volunteers within the organization are also great potential prospects.
Capacity. Wealthy and connected non-donors are great prospects for you.
Capacity or the potential they have, wealth,
is your top criteria when considering who to visit.
Whether you know them or not,
you can engage a prospect and inspire them to love your organization,
but you can not make them wealthy.
Look for prospects and donors in certain high wealth potential professions: lawyers,
doctors, successful business owners,
entrepreneurs, vice presidents, CEOs, and the like.
Here, LinkedIn is your best friend.
Location, location, location.
Pay attention to high wealth zip codes in which prospects you know live in them.
If you have them, vendor-provided wealth screenings and capacity ratings of
your database are an invaluable tool that will
help you to uncover top prospects who you should probably get to know.
Affinity. Prospects who are engaged with your organization are great potential donors.
Those with relationship to your organization demonstrating affinity, empathy, support,
and a bond to the mission through actions and deeds such as attendance,
volunteering, and meeting attendance.
Affinity is a key complement to capacity.
A donor can have great love reorganization and
believe deeply in the goals of changing the world,
but without financial capacity,
they're not good philanthropic prospects.
They're excellent volunteers.
The flip is true. I call them bright and shiny objects.
Everyone knows the Gates Foundation has incredible wealth,
but do they have affinity for your organization?
Probably, not.
So, don't waste your time and energy on those long shots.
You're looking for high likelihood of a gift,
not dreams of big gifts.
That said, look for potential among those who are identified by
other donors and volunteers as good potential prospects.
Those existing relationships are powerful motivators.
Who your volunteers and donors know who they feel you should pursue?
Who do they know who are also not worth your time?
Almost as important is the right person to
pursue is the people not to waste your time with.
Ideas for people known to have significant points of connection in the past
but who have fallen off the radar would include: event attendees,
institutional and volunteers, colleagues, co-workers, staff,
faculty and organizational leadership,
and they're all great potential donors.
Another important consideration as you're thinking about who to engage is age.
The best news for the leadership annual giving officers are
their donors who can make leadership annual gifts at all of the age groups.
Personally, I've had great success with folks in their late 40s up through their 80s.
I also have several donors here at UC Davis who have been
inspired to give $1,000 annually in their 20s.
Never assume a donor can't make a gift.
It's their decision.
Ask them and let them tell you.
If you assume they can't,
you make the decision for them.
Remember the self-fulfilling prophecy?
Without asking, you'll never actually know for sure.
One example of this that comes to mind,
a development officer went to see a donor with four small children.
She assumed the prospect couldn't afford the gifts because of her kids.
What she was doing was actually projecting her experience
of having a family of small children and her ability to give.
The DO made the assumption based on her own sense of what is normal,
and what wealth and kids looks like that the donor wouldn't be able to make the gift.
The reality is that the prospect's husband is a tech sector giant in Silicon Valley,
and a leadership level annual gift of $10,000 is
the equivalent to them of a 20-dollar gift for most of us.
But because the DO assumed that they couldn't afford it,
she didn't ask for the gift.
So, no gift was made.
Three years later, when I met with this prospect,
I asked for $10,000.
She made the gift and excitedly wanted to know how to make her larger campaign gift.
You know what they say about assuming.
Here's another important tip when you're prospecting.
Do not forget about known events that could interrupt giving.
Examples include donors who lapse between December 2008 and 2010.
They may have rebuilt their wealth since the great downturn.
If you're somebody that works and lives in Oregon,
Phil Knight disrupted all philanthropy there with
a broad 500-million-dollar matching campaign to fight cancer.
On the East Coast,
storm Sandy totally disrupted giving and focused it in other places.
It's an unpredictable world where impactful events can potentially impact giving amounts,
areas of focus, and philanthropic vision in a temporary way.
So, don't assume anything about the lapse in giving that
they may be upset or they don't want to support you anymore,
something in their lives has interfered.
Reach out to the prospect and learn firsthand what's happened.
Many will be touched by the outreach and inspired to reinvest in your organization,
but you'll never know if you assume they're done with you and then never try.
This is a numbers game.
You're in a volume business and more is always more.
Depending upon the makeup of your donor base,
how warm the prospects are,
if they're donors or not,
and many other factors,
I've heard development officers talk about having to make
as many as 17 individual attempts to score a visit.
You do not want to over attempt any single prospect in that process.
You have to be strategic and that means allowing time
between the visit attempts and varying the ways that you attempt them.
We'll discuss this later, but for now,
I want you to be keenly aware that you need to have lots of people in
your communication stream so you're not over attempting any single entity.
Don't ever be afraid to rest,
recycle, and purge prospects from your efforts.
The best way to rest them is to add more to the pool.
I have a warning or another tip for you when you're prospecting.
Paralysis by analysis is terminal.
Do not over research prospects to add to your efforts.
Deep-dive research is a must once you've scheduled a visit, not before.
The reason this is terminal at this stage,
when you are simply deciding who to engage is that it is
a trap many fall into that prevents them from actually attempting to set the visit.
You will never see prospects or raise money unless
you're disciplined about your time and your efforts when you're prospecting.
So, stop digging and start calling to ask for visits.
Efficiency here is key.
Develop a quick, consistent,
and methodical approach to assessing a prospect,
reach out to them, and then move on to the next one.
Fears are real, but you can't let them get in your way.
It's human nature to stall and research is the black hole of choice for many fundraisers.
This distraction and many others are driven by apprehension.
As I said before, rejection is often at the top of the list.
But remember, a no doesn't usually mean no,
and it's never personal.
Moreover, it's a valuable outcome in and of itself.
A hard no means you have disqualified someone.
That's a win. An important part of your job.
Congrats on a job well done.
Now, you can move on to the next person.
Many of the others included here are related to the big one, exposing ignorance.
Take comfort. None of us knows at all and all of us know that.
This is a job where practice will never make perfect.
But experience does build proficiencies to
know how to handle new and different experiences.
You never want to be afraid to say,
"I'm not sure," or "I don't know," as long as you can follow with,
"Let me check and get back to you," as a way to secure the next visit.
Road Warrior has many connotations.
Some officers will be walking around their community to meet prospects,
others will drive around or across the city,
still a few of you may drive hours to cover the state or fly.
The key here is that you can't be an effective face-to-face fundraiser unless you
leave your office and your desk and get face-to-face with your prospects.
You've got to plan carefully.
Remember, you're in a volume business and your most precious resource is time.
You need to be strategic as you schedule visits to
make sure you can see as many people as possible,
especially if you're using precious travel dollars of
your organization in order to go out and see donors.
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